Credit Union Affairs

Wednesday, August 03, 2016

What Really Counts...

Robusterian quants - les grosses tetes-a-pointe- are particularly peculiar individuals, who are quite often remarkably deficient in their personal communications skills. They assume that their inherently idiosyncratic, articulatory amphigory speaks for itself - which usually, it most amusingly does!
But, the real problem is that their awkwardness with language "is positively correlated" with their clumsiness with math - with a high degree of confidence!(Your standard deviants aside!)

Let me give you an example of a heads-of-point conundrum with which the robusterians just can not abide. The serious analysis begins with the question: "How much is 1+1?"Robusterians, of course, answer disdainfully that 1+1 = 2... all but the foolish (... and NCUA believes all of us are!) know that - right! "Elementary, my dear Watson!"

Well, try this. If you were to take 1 wad of gum...

1 wad...

... plus 1 wad = ?

and add it to a 2nd wad of gum, how many wads of gum would you have?

Clearly if you add one wad of gum to another wad of gum, you end up with - voila! - one wad of gum.

Ipso facto: 1+1 = 1!

What some of us continue to hope for is that NCUA will, at some point, "achieve enlightenment" (probably occasioned, unfortunately, through continued public, self-embarrassment!) and come to understand that:

Snake oilanyone !

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - William Bruce Cameron

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

OK I get your point. I think. But for us who are not as astute as you, please talk in laymen's terms. Especially if you want to get through to Laurel and Hardy and the rest of the crew at NCUA. You must speak as if they have the mentality of a three year old. And that may be pushing it.

NCUA is extremely weak in data analytics, economic forecasting, and quantitative analysis - and acknowledges that fact with no promise of improvement. Much of NCUA's "analysis" of your CU still is unbelievably based on elementary Call Report data and bless their hearts "peer comparisons". This weak, superficial "analysis" of a credit union is often compounded by the "world view" of an examiner not well-versed in real world business dynamics nor local economic/market conditions - let's call it the "worst of all worlds exam practice"!

And, to make matters thoroughly ridiculous and highly dangerous for your CU, the faux analysis risk is compounded by a lack of transparency with exams and a purposefully opaque and non-functioning, independent appeals process.

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Jim Blaine lives in the woods in rural North Carolina. He is slightly balding, can be testy, is not getting thinner, has been known to argue and has at least one opinion on everything. Jim thinks he can dance, but he really can’t; likes most people and some dogs. He is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, holds an MBA from Duke University and is also a CPA (inactive). Jim has worked with the State Employees’ Credit Union and has served unsuccessfully on numerous boards and committees. His grandchildren call him “Sweetbaby", but they are still too young to know better.